sticking the proverbial toe in!

amy

Mornin' all.

I am looking for some advice (surprising that really), I am extremely tempted by a Macbook 13quot; laptop and thought I would have a quick look through the forum here to see whats going on with it so I have a couple of questions.

1. I doubt I will be running Mac OS at all so is it as straight forward as formatting the drive and installing ubuntu onto it or is there something else that I will need to do?

2. I notice the post about compiling a kernal... never had to do this on my current laptop so is it completely necessary/ if not what are the advantages of it?

3. The macbook comes with 802.11n and bluetooth built in how does this work on ubuntu (dapper/feisty) and do you get fully speeds etc for them?

Cheers in advance
niteblind


Originally Posted by niteblind

1. I doubt I will be running Mac OS at all so is it as straight forward as formatting the drive and installing ubuntu onto it or is there something else that I will need to do?

Pretty much, although you may not want to wipe the entire drive, and want to keep a small OSX partition for firmware updates.

2. I notice the post about compiling a kernal... never had to do this on my current laptop so is it completely necessary/ if not what are the advantages of it?

Not necessary, the precompiled kernels installed by default are fine. Compiling your own can help you reduce the size of your kernel, activate / deactivate features of the kernel, add patches / modifications to the code that are not included in the default kernels, etc.

3. The Macbook comes with 802.11n and bluetooth built in how does this work on ubuntu (dapper/feisty) and do you get fully speeds etc for them?

Don't have a whole lot of experience on this one as I am not currently using these (nor do I have a Macbook). WiFi will work with some help, and I am unsure if you can achieve n connections yet. Bluetooth works fine, but is not as easy to configure as in OSX (IMO). I have used it before (keyboard/mouse), but I cannot attest to the speed as I have not benchmarked it.

thanks for the reply.

What sort of firmware would be necessary? surely BIOS updates etc would not need a partition so I am a little confused there. Also i notice a few mentions about a thing call Parallels what is this some sort of emulator???

Finally for those of you out there using OS X how easy is it to install linux apps to this or is it not possible?

cheers

Unfortunately it seems that Apple uses the blank 200MB EFI partition at the front of the disk to install firmware updates (in some cases.)

See this post.  I do not have OS X installed on my first-gen MacBook and have had no problems.  You can't install firmware updates except through OS X though, so keep that in mind.

Parallels is a virtual machine environment for OS X.  You can install  or Windows etc. in it and run them simultaneously with OS X.  I have absolutely no need for OS X or Windows, so I don't use it.  I always install  directly on the hardware.


Originally Posted by niteblindFinally for those of you out there using OS X how easy is it to install linux apps to this or is it not possible?

cheers

I completely agree with Benanzo's responses. Don't expect any method of installing OS X apps in Linux; there was recently talk on Slashdot about such a monster, and I don't believe the discussion was particularly fruitful. Perhaps you're already familiar with it, but Fink would let you run Unix apps in OS X.

okay guys thanks for that one last thing that I am curious about....

Mac books are running the Intel on board shared memory graphics chipset, how does this fly with ubuntu when it comes to things like cloning the desktop/extending the desktop onto a second display (I am thinking mainly of Svideo out to a TV)?

I had a couple of stabs on Dapper with Kubuntu and once cloned the laptop monitor would not come on anymore only the TV!

Any ideas anyone?
niteblind

I have no specific experience with the GMA950 chips on the MacBooks, but I used to clone/extend my screen onto an external moniter with an integrated Mobility Radeon 7500 on a Dell Inspiron 5100 (which I think is much less capable than the Intel chips) and never had a problem with performance.

the intel graphics chipset does not have the best support on ubuntu as opposed to ATI who make linux specific graphics drivers.

Ok onto the next few thoughts I have had...

1. i suooise I am asking a dtupid question when i say does the included remote control work onn ubuntu?
2. Does the inbuilt isight cam work at all?
3. What sort of battery lige are ppl actually getting with this laptop?

thanks once again in advance

niteblind

There is a section of the Macbook wiki about extended desktop
community/MacBookOriginally Posted by niteblindthe intel graphics chipset does not have the best support on ubuntu as opposed to ATI who make linux specific graphics drivers.

Ok onto the next few thoughts I have had...

1. i suooise I am asking a dtupid question when i say does the included remote control work onn ubuntu?
2. Does the inbuilt isight cam work at all?
3. What sort of battery lige are ppl actually getting with this laptop?

Wow you have it backwards, Intel has better drivers than ATI (of course ATI drivers suck on all OSs)

to answer the other questions.
Remote can work -  from : localhost//showthread.p...ghlight=remote
iSight will work -  from : localhost//showthread.php?t=491381
Can't help with battery life as I am not on a portable.


Originally Posted by niteblindthe intel graphics chipset does not have the best support on ubuntu as opposed to ATI who make linux specific graphics drivers.

As cyberdork33 noted, this is way off-base. Perhaps you could try installing the 915resolution package, available in Synaptic, to help with the Intel graphics chipset.